Alec Baldwin may generally enjoy the special protections of a Hollywood liberal when it comes to crass comments and outrageous behavior, but it appears that the lethal mixture of horrible ratings and an embarrassing arrest was a bit too much for ABC to keep propping up his self-described “good show.” Baldwin’s new show is the only new addition to ABC’s lineup this season to be relocated to another time slot, and one that is clearly a “demotion.”
On Friday, the infamously ill-behaved Baldwin was arrested on charges of assaulting a guy Baldwin says stole his parking spot. “It looks like it was a dispute over the parking spot, and the person in custody punched him,” New York Police Department Det. Sophia Mason said. The man in custody, Mason confirmed, was Baldwin, who was booked at the 6th Precinct station.
The arrest earned some mockery from one of his friends at SNL — which featured a line about “disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin, seen here molesting a young Boy Scout” the day after the arrest — but ABC didn’t bother making any public comments about the situation, except to say that it would be airing “The Alec Baldwin Show” as usual on Sunday at 10 p.m.
But, while the network hasn’t drawn much attention to the ugly incident, execs have decided it’s about time Baldwin’s ratings-challenged show gets relocated to a less preferable spot.
“ABC’s patience with The Alec Baldwin Show has ended,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Lesley Goldberg reported Tuesday. “The network has pulled its remaining episodes of the pretaped talk show from its home on Sundays at 10 p.m., effective Nov. 18. Unaired new episodes of the series, hosted by Baldwin, will resume airing on in its new time slot on Saturdays, starting Dec. 8 at 10 p.m. Production on all the remaining episodes has already been completed.”
What will air in its place? “Shark Tank” repeats, says Goldberg, that is until some holiday programming takes over for a few weeks.
While certainly Baldwin’s ugly display over his “stolen” parking space didn’t help matters, the real issue with the show is that its ratings have been awful, earning just 1.5 million total views this week, down from its already dismal 2 million views in October.
As The Daily Wire’s Joseph Curl noted earlier this week, this isn’t the first time Baldwin has been involved in a meltdown (formatting adjusted):
Who can forget the time the “30 Rock” actor launched homophobic slurs at a photographer that was taking pictures of him on a public street, calling him a “c**k-sucking fag.” And he called a British journo a “toxic little queen.” It’s been a longtime habit of Baldwin, his homophobic rants. Way back in 1992, he called a horse-drawn carriage driver a “faggot.”
Then there was the time Baldwin said he hoped a female reporter would “choke to death.”
Another time, Baldwin got a ticket riding a bike the wrong way down a one-way street. But he also got belligerent, ripping the police with a spew of profanity, and he ended up in handcuffs (yet again). The list goes on: He was kicked off a flight in 2011 when he refused to turn off his cellphone (he was too busy playing “Words With Friends”). On his way out he bashed a bathroom door in a rage. Then there was the time he left a message on an answering machine for his 12-year-old daughter (or 11, he wasn’t sure) calling her a “rude, thoughtless little pig.”
Despite all that baggage, Baldwin has continued to enjoy the respect and admiration of his fellow limousine liberals — and more so than ever lately because of his willingness to keep rolling out his pouty Donald Trump impersonation and his hard work producing his even less-funny satirical book mocking Trump. Small price to pay for a lifetime pass to be a jerk to everyone outside the bubble.
Related: ABC, NBC Give Alec Baldwin A Pass, Unlike Roseanne Barr, Megyn Kelly